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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016295">The Darkest Month</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InquiringMinds/pseuds/InquiringMinds'>InquiringMinds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>AU, Natural Disasters, Pre-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:35:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,794</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InquiringMinds/pseuds/InquiringMinds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Avatar Roku lives up to his duty to guide the world in a better direction, he actually stays to guide Fire Lord Sozin away from colonies and the ideology that thinks such things are good for the rest of the world. But this is Sozin's story and the world is so much different.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The chamber is silent as the last of his councilors leave as Sozin dismisses them. They have ideas for this city but they don’t think large enough, not like his generals. They share his ambitions for expanding into this region to guide the local Earth Kingdom peasants toward the best ways to participate in the wealth of the Fire Nation. He plans to meet with them later today to discuss such things, but first he has to take the time to refocus his mind after hours of dull meetings with lower ministers. The agricultural, cultural, and education ministers might be important but the great opportunities offered by the nascent Fire Nation colonies are much more important right now, the industrial and military might of the nation is Sozin’s most important focus, it has to be.</p>
<p>He’s spent a little time refocusing his mind and considering how to expand the colonies and the best land to include into the nation when Sozin’s drawn to the sound of the main door opening. Without even a knock or an introduction someone, quite brash, comes into the room. His fire flares up around the throne, the audacity of this visitor to come without any introduction – and then he sees his friend.</p>
<p>Avatar Roku is already halfway in the chamber and still walking when his friend’s words register and Sozin hears, “- How dare you occupy Earth Kingdom territory?”</p>
<p>The embers of his frustration flare back up and Sozin doesn’t think, responding immediately in the same tone. “How dare you, a citizen of the Fire Nation, address your Fire Lord, this way?” This was something he was doing for the betterment of the nation, for the benefit of their people. “Your loyalty is to our nation first. Anything less makes you a traitor.”</p>
<p>“Don’t do this, Sozin. Don’t challenge me. It will only end badly.” The thought hadn’t crossed his mind before, but now. The arrogance of Roku, someone who should really know better, here in the palace.</p>
<p>“It’s over.” The Avatar says before turning around and walking away.</p>
<p>And that burns worst of all. To dismiss him. The ruler of a nation. At the seat of his power. At the height of his power. The greatest nation in the world. To put his power over the needs of the nation, over how the Fire Nation could, would, change the world. It’s unacceptable.</p>
<p>It takes only a second for the rage to boil over, to jump down from the dais and send a gout of flame forward to encompass the room. Roku was never the better firebender. And if a fight was what it was going to take then Sozin was going to teach his old friend a lesson, to put the subject back into place.</p>
<p>But as the flames parted and dissipated there was no one in sight. The avatar had vanished and his fire had burned nothing but the room. There was just enough time to look around for the snake when a sudden rumbling from the ground behind him made Sozin turn just in time to get a blast of air in the face from Avatar Roku popping up from the earth.</p>
<p>The gust propelled him to the entry doors and instantly a pillar of stone sprung from the floor and pinned him to the ceiling by his robes. Across the room he saw Avatar Roku briefly put his hands together and his eyes flash just quickly enough that Sozin could bring his arms up to stop the next blast of air.</p>
<p>It destroyed the columns and the entire building was gone when he lowered his arms. Avatar Roku flew toward him on a whirling column of air with the debris of the building spinning wildly beneath him. The look of fury from his old friend made Fire Lord Sozin want to raise his arms again but barely contained himself as the avatar delivered his ultimatum.</p>
<p>“I’m sparing you Sozin. I’m letting you go in the name of our past friendship but I warn you, even a single step out of line will result in your permanent end.”</p>
<p>He glared at the Avatar but Sozin saw no change in expression, no trace of pity or remorse for the fact that the ultimatum would be carried out if the Avatar felt it was necessary. He was beat, shamed in less than a minute. He would give no response but to hang his head, the least measure of acceptance and all that he could muster.</p>
<p>The Avatar seemed appeased by this answer and rode away on his column of wind and debris to clear away the damage he had caused in the destruction of a wing of the palace.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Sozin had made it back down the thirty or forty feet when Avatar Roku appeared again in what had once been the throne room of the palace. The fire was still in his eyes and Sozin knew his own still burned fiercely, it seemed like the Avatar was focusing it now toward some new goal.</p>
<p>Sozin was still too angry to speak but after a brief silence, the consideration of a new fight the Avatar broke the tension. “There are staff members cleaning up and some crews that are already surveying the damage in order to rebuild this wing of the palace.” Roku didn’t look particularly considered with the severity of the damage he had done, but he did glance out at the workers gathering the materials on the surrounding grounds and speak less harshly for the next statement. “No one was seriously injured in my explosion.”</p>
<p>“Small mercies” Sozin muttered.</p>
<p>The harsh look and tone returned immediately as the Avatar continued. “I do not tolerate people being purposely hurt. In order to ensure that the Fire Nation does not continue hurting the people they have colonized I will be by your side for the foreseeable future.”</p>
<p>“You cannot -!”</p>
<p>“I can.” Avatar Roku cut him off with a flare in his eyes Sozin knew now not to challenge.  “I am of the Fire Nation, don’t scoff, but I am also the Avatar. I have a greater responsibility than to just one nation and must act accordingly. You were not wrong, yes, but not now, years ago when describing the wealth of our nation. I love my home but now I do not recognize it. Colonies, militaristic philosophy, and prejudice mar the nation I once knew. I will stay by your side so that these dangerous things may pass us by.”</p>
<p>Sozin took advantage of the pause Roku was offering for his consideration. It was unthinkable that he would be so involved after years of being away from here. From being among the rabble of the Earth Kingdom, the spiritualists of the Water Tribes, and the drifters of the Air Nomads. He put as much contempt as he could into his question. “The Avatar is going to rule a nation?”</p>
<p>“A friend is going to advise his friend away from unwise courses of action.” Roku replied with the fire still in his eyes but warm enough for comfort before blazing with the follow up. “But I still have my duty and my ultimatum. I do not wish for it to come to pass, but I would make sure that this course of action does not continue. One way or another.”</p>
<p>There was no mistaking the steel in that statement and Sozin accepted this deal. He knew how to work his administration anyway, a step out of line for the Avatar who had wandered for years would certainly be different than someone who had built this government, who had lived in it. Fire Lord Sozin resigned himself this for a time, the Avatar could only focus on one nation for so long before the responsibility of the rest of the world caught up with him. Sozin had a very different meeting with his generals that afternoon than he had planned in the morning but the thought of meetings years away kept him optimistic for the plans he had perfected since his teenage years.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Sozin became used to having Avatar Roku around days into the arrangement and it was several weeks before the rest of the administration accepted that this would be a long assignment. Months later the Avatar was still by his side in every meeting and consideration of Fire Nation policy and Sozin began to worry how long Avatar Roku would actually be committed to setting things straight. It would be one thing to have the ultimatum hanging over his thread and Roku somewhere else so that he could plan in secret but the Avatar was a constant. Roku was also much more aware of subtle changes in policy than Sozin had anticipated and was quick to call him out on small things like relying on incomplete or biased sources of information for broad policy decisions, and spending time with his colonial ministers.</p>
<p>Sozin confronted Roku just before the end of a year of guidance about the focus on one nation, the dedication to one person.</p>
<p>Roku’s response was slow in coming, but not unsure as he said “The Avatar’s duty to is to provide balance to the world. I am the Avatar, but I am also a person, there is a limit to what I can do. I need to decide how I can do the most good for the world. It may seem selfish to devote this much time to one nation, to one person, but I believe, wholly, that I can do the most good here.”</p>
<p>And he stayed the full year and the next and the next. Sozin was still the Fire Lord, he had final control over each decision and knew that he could choose to do something that Roku disagreed with, and occasionally did. But there was always a look, not quite the Look from the fight-that-wasn’t over the colonies three years ago. It was Roku’s way of affirming the Fire Lord’s sovereignty over his nation, but warning that taking a single step over the line would incite decisive action from the Avatar.</p>
<p>Avatar Roku wasn’t constantly reminding him of the sword hanging over his head for any wrong decisions in his role as Fire Lord, but Sozin was constantly aware despite Roku’s seeming affability. After the tempers of the fight had burned out he had told Sozin about his travels around the world, learning about the other nations, the struggles of finding bending teachers, and the trials of actually learning the bending styles. Sozin had heard a little in the short time before Roku’s wedding and learned more of the details now, as well as what Roku had seen and done in the couple decades since the wedding and now.  Sozin hadn’t told him of his own actions during the same time and listened reluctantly as he was trying to read some proposal or draft his own letters. It was grating to have Roku always do this while he was working or in the late night hours when it was just the two of them, but he knew his friend a little better than in the years that had passed between the wedding night argument and the colony-not-a-fight.</p>
<p>The changes were becoming clear after a few years of insistence and occasional light suggestion from the Avatar. The most vocal supporters of colonization had been removed from their offices and podiums to speak from in favor of early and lucrative retirements or less impactful positions until they accepted. Roku also encouraged new methods of teaching that removed the stereotypes that informed prejudices of the other nations. His travels, the teachings of Avatar approved academics, and stories from diplomats and traders on the new routes to the Earth Kingdom and beyond informed a new curriculum that Roku argued, and Sozin knew, was less propaganda and more fact.</p>
<p>Ten more years in to the arrangement between the Fire Lord and the Avatar and Sozin has come to trust the advice of his friend more often than not. A couple junior ministers have been educated under the new curriculum and are much more optimistic, though a bit overeager, about the future of the nation than the oldest ministers. The old guard tends to stick to the views that Sozin himself still holds, that the growing population and industrialization requires resources and labor that cannot be completely sourced within the Archipelago. His Defense Minister, formerly the top general, certainly holds these ideas has increasingly taken to shooting dark looks at the junior ministers proposing investments in agriculture, education, and domestic industry over recruitment, training, and build-ups.</p>
<p>At the twenty-five year mark it strikes Sozin like lightning on a clear day that he has been Fire Lord without Roku coming to every meeting and constantly around him for a few years now. Sozin pauses mid interruption of some pointless plea for foreign intervention, as colonies are called now by the last of the old guard, to process this realization. Roku responds to every ask for wisdom and occasionally comes by to sit in on a meeting with the rest of the advisors but the constant presence is gone. It’s finally naming the strange feeling for the past month and he’s a little sad that they’re not constantly around each other anymore. It had felt like their childhood a little bit, just to be constantly around each other with the jokes and the closeness they had rekindled after long years of working together on turning a nation towards a new course.</p>
<p>Sozin makes a point to just have tea with his friend, but then, not a few months, later Roku’s island erupts.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sozin wakes just before sunrise, getting ready for another day of meetings with his councilors in the near-light of early morning with a few members of his retinue. They bring him some food and helping him into the finer wear necessary for the Fire Lord to wear during the business of statecraft so that he may actually get to the first meetings not long after the sun rises. The faint red light of dawn shines through the windows as he kisses goodbye. She goes with her two aides to get ready for the duties of her own day, and leaves with only one servant to accompany his walk through the gardens between the personal wing and the administrative part of the palace.</p><p>It’s a slow morning as he’s out a little later than normal, but after decades of running a nation Sozin has come to appreciate the stillness of the early morning. The way that not only the nature of his gardens seems to be asleep but also in the slow movements of his staff, waking up not much earlier than himself and shaking off sleep as well. He doesn’t have any early meetings with his advisors anyway.</p><p>Dawn appears to be taking it’s time as well, the sky is a deep crimson color slowly lightening into lighter fiery shades and the sun’s light is still dimmed by persistent morning fog.</p><p>A new servant from his staff in the administrative wing of the palace comes to take the place of his home quarters help and they share a glance at the sky, still a red color despite the late morning hour. Sozin has noticed the persistent red tinge to the sky a portent of the day to come. It’s confusing and he’s noticed a few glances toward the sky from people passing by the garden, but the deeper red of the early morning light had been a little more comforting, a hue much closer to his own station and element. The persistence past the normal dawn time for colored skies is worrying now the shade much lighter and the deep red has faded to an unsettling pinkness that lingers near the horizon as the sun climbs higher.</p><p>The staff are clearly worried and Sozin has no idea but he keeps his face straight as he calmly asks for the resident Fire Sages to meet with him at their earliest convenience. They have their own authority but will undoubtedly come quickly from their residence on the imperial grounds. He makes it known that he will see them first, before any other meetings today. On his way through the palace to the audience room, Sozin speaks about the reassurances and answers he knows that the Sages will offer him to tell to the people in an effort to calm the general unease he sees among the staff he passes. Privately he also thinks about what this might mean. There were certainly no events that he was aware of that would generate such a phenomenon and Sozin was unaware of any disturbances that might have caused the spirits to act this way.</p><p>Best to consult the experts though, the Fire Lord thinks, as the Fire Sages walk in. He came down from his throne to sit on the first step and talk with them, an order with an authority in their own right, duties to the Avatar for one, but also Fire Nation citizens. Pleasantries are made as the last of the five elders comes in for the discussion and they all sit down.<br/>No sooner have they begun when one of Sozin’s own servants, from his personal staff that alternates days and duties between the residences of the Fire Lord and their rooms within the administrative palace. The woman knocks on the door even as she enters, cutting off any discussion before it had even really started.</p><p>There is no unease on her face, she’s terrified.</p><p>“The sea is rushing away from the Lower Capital harbor.” They all know what that means, and six of the most powerful people on the island follow the servant, Mikasa, Sozin thinks. Among Roku’s last lessons were insistences that Sozin, the Fire Lord, learn the names of his servants, at least the names of his personal staff to start.</p><p>It’s a strange thing to think about as he, and the five Fire Sages, quickly follow the woman out of the palace and to the rim of the Capital city proper. They arrive and look into the Lower Capital stretching down the mountain, widening out and becoming a fairly sized city in its own right where the land meets the water in the natural harbor. They’ve run pretty quickly behind her in order to get to the rim, but they know it’s not fast enough.</p><p>They see a massive wave with a crest just below the level of the cliffs that form the natural harbor of the Lower Capital, cliffs a little more than 40 meters tall. There’s still a good distance between the opening of the cliffs and the opening of the bay and between that it’s hard to distinguish the wave from the rest of the water rushing back into the bay. Sozin hopes that the receding tide and then the minute between the entrance at the cliffs had been enough time and warning for the town.</p><p>And when the water hits the height is apparent again as it consumes the buildings near the water line and rushes ships from the harbor through the streets and the buildings that are left. It really looks like a wall of water as more debris gets picked up and coloring the front of the wave. It’s the most powerful elemental force Sozin has ever seen, even as a bender as powerful as himself and being friends with the Avatar. The ocean had risen up and pushed back the town like someone brushing some sand across a table, and he is still awe struck and speechless.</p><p>The water is clearly still moving through the city, but now it isn’t carrying the city with it and is merely the worst case of flooding beyond the point where the heaviest debris, ships and large parts of entire buildings, marked the extent of the carrying capacity of the wave.<br/>And now the sound reaches the people assembled on the rim, a greater number now as others had come to see what the Fire Lord was looking at or were heralded by their friends to come watch in awed horror what was happening in the valley below. A deep rushing sound, like large boulders rolling down a hill combined the crashes of waves hitting the shore and the stone houses beyond it. It washes up the mountain and over Fire Lord Sozin, breaking his stare.</p><p>He points to a Sage and tells them to go with Mikasa to the palace and find his domestic advisors, the rest of the meetings for today are going to be held in the lower capital with a focus on the devastation caused this morning. The other four he brings with him down the mountain so that they may go and help. It takes the better part of an hour and it’s well into late morning. The pink glow on the horizon is still there despite the position of the sun, but that’s an afterthought now. Sozin’s discussions with the Fire Sages are how to help the Lower Capital.</p><p>They agree that some of the debris will have to be burned away and that teams of firebenders, or at least teams of people with a couple firebenders, will have to go through the destruction in order to find people still among the rubble. Tsunamis do not offer much warning. That there was even enough time for himself to see it after running from the palace is a minor miracle. Another blessing is that the Fire Sages are listening to his orders. The one at the top is rallying his advisors to work down here for today, at least – probably more as the hour of walking down the mountain comes to an end. Another has acquiesced to setting up a suitable administrative area in a building at the edge of the city, up the hill and away from the effects of the wave. The other three are going to come with him before splitting up and aiding in the relief efforts until midday when the administration is set up for a more effective response.</p><p>An island nation, especially with a lot of active volcanoes, is used to tsunami waves, but this is the largest one that Sozin remembers and from the anecdotes shaken Lower Capital citizens tell him as he helps during the most difficult couple hours of his life. It’s bitter work, moving debris out of the way, bending enough fire to dry sections and with enough focus to cut apart sections of large debris. It’s also rewarding when he sees people being found and reunited. Above all it’s exhausting.</p><p>The disaster is so fresh and without any comparable recent memory that no one comments on the Fire Lord himself and Fire Sages helping until they’re stopped near midday for a meal. It’s clear that he’s still the Fire Lord, he’s dressed in the robes according to his station and several members of his staff came down to help him, to help generally. They were the same people to guide him to the citizens in their homes handing out food from their homes least affected by the flooding, buildings closest to and beyond the final wall of debris pushed into the city.</p><p>The family serving the meal don’t realize they are serving the Fire Lord, his servants, and a couple Fire Sages until Sozin and his staff are midway through the meal. It’s clear because they start whispering among each other and then clearly have a louder whispered debate as to who should approach him.</p><p>“I- Your highness.” It looks like the eldest son, the one that had been the one to usher them into the house after the previous group, talking amongst all of the people in the home, and running between the kitchen and their party, has been selected to talk with him. He’s bowing as he speaks before Sozin, not quite the kneeling common for most people, but there are still a couple inches of water on the floor.</p><p>“Go on.” Sozin likes the lightness of the situation, that they’re clearly nervous but still trying to stand on ceremony at a time like this. He appreciates that he at least got to finish eating before they approached like this. “I think that today I can hear from my people without all of the usual ceremony.” And he raises his hand so that the young man can stand normally and talk with his Fire Lord.</p><p>“Uh, right your highness. Well, we, um, would like to thank you for helping out after the tsunami.” He’s probably close to coming of age, probably a student back for school or working as an apprentice somewhere in the lower city. It makes the quick look back at his mother, waving at him to continue, that much more endearing. “Oh! And we are very honored by the fact that you chose to eat here after working to help the city this morning.”</p><p>“I do endeavor to help all of my people. I am a citizen of our nation as well, I hurt just as much as you when such disastrous events happen to our people.” It’s not true of course. He’s the Fire Lord living in the palace safely in the rim of the Capital and this is a family of ordinary people living in one of the poorer neighborhoods of the coastal Lower Capital. But today had been eye opening as he saw firsthand the devastation this record tsunami had caused.</p><p>“We are grateful for the generosity of your character and your compassionate spirit.” The mother says, stepping up and saving her son who looks a little lost at having talked with the leader of his nation this long.</p><p>“I should like to thank your family though.” Sozin says after seeing the rest of his staff finish their meals and prepare to leave. “You are doing a service similar to my own duties, that of making sure that our people are taken care of.”</p><p>He’s shocked them too many times, and the whole family is again speechless.</p><p>“Might I at least get your name? I’m often told by a close friend that I should endeavor to better learn other people’s names. I would like to remember this kindness.”</p><p>The boy recovers this time and stammers out a “Lee” before quieting himself with a look of nervous contemplation as to what a thanks from the Fire Lord might entail. The mother shares the same apprehension.</p><p>It’s not a common name now, but these things come and go with each new generation. “Very well. I shall remember that.” He’s going to try, but he sees one of his personal servants write it down as well. The rest are hovering as the conversation is wrapping up. The two Fire Sages that are with him seem to be finding the whole thing faintly amusing. “And I take it this is your house and any thanks I send from the palace can be received here?”</p><p>They nod together, still stunned by the prospect of future attention from the Fire Lord.</p><p>“Thank you for the meal. The palace will be in touch. Have a good day.” And he’s ushered out by his personal staff, already working on suitable small gifts for the family as they fall around Sozin and the two Fire Sages. He talks with them about the pink glow on the horizon as they return to the temporary administrative building set up earlier in the day and to the business of running the Fire Nation.</p><p>Sozin knows the walk is the only time now that he has to talk about the light on the horizon before he steps into the building and is faced with the task of rebuilding the Lower Capital. He listens to the opinions of the Fire Sages, but they don’t know any more about what it might mean or what it’s cause might be. Simplistic frameworks, that a bright future for the Fire Nations is coming just beyond the horizon seem invalidated by the events of this morning. The three of them continue to discuss the phenomenon as they walk as Sozin braces himself for the report on the exact nature of the devastation he’s spent the last several hours walking through. As he gets to the door of the building it’s the first time that the thought of the extent of the tsunami hits him. He wonders at the fate of other ports and fishing villages on the inner coasts of the archipelago and the dark faces of his assembled advisors do little to alleviate his worry.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The situation for the Fire Nation doesn’t appear as bad as the looks on his advisors’ faces might suggest. Surges have hit the coast for miles around but the first reports seem like it wasn’t as bad as here in the Lower Capital. The record tsunami seems to have only been this catastrophic here. The soundest explanation is the geography of the capital, having been down a channel that focused the destructive power of the natural disaster up the strait towards this city. Sozin resolves to fix this. The Fire Nation will not be quenched. Benders control the elements. It will be done.</p><p>Of course it will be hard for a nation of firebenders to stop the tide, but he is the Fire Lord of the most prosperous nation in the world. The Fire Nation is capable of great things, and in his early years as the Fire Lord Sozin thought that the greatest thing would be to share the prosperity of his nation with the world, else it be ignored or worse, fade and lost. Now Sozin sees the wealth of his nation in the speed and the willingness of the people in the Capital and the Lower Capital come together and help one another. The selflessness and the undying spirit of his people reaffirmed the glimpses Roku showed him in the decades since their youth. From the creation of reliable steam engines, trains, an his own expansion of the education system, the Fire Nation’s greatness has not faded. </p><p>It still will not, as Sozin sees a great new challenge in securing the islands from the worst of the natural world by means of great feats of design and engineering befitting this new age. Ideas of great gates that break the power of any future tsunami spiral through his mind as he listens to his advisors talk about the impact of the great wave on the settlements along the inner east coast of the Fire Nation. Sozin speaks up occasionally to encourage the reconstruction of these settlements’ docks into fuller harbors. He hopes the construction and increase in capacity will accommodate the growing numbers of his people and their greater interest in moving to growing towns and new cities. It seems to be a similar sentiment among his councilors and they take his comment and continue the discussion of details, guided occasionally by an additional comment from their Fire Lord.</p><p>After about an hour of discussion, there is a growing consensus about the generalities of constructing larger and more protective harbors and the specifics of how to do so in some of the bigger cities. A couple of the larger cities, industrial centers, will have harbors large enough to maintain the modern, but aging fleet constructed several decades earlier when Imperial ambitions were focused less domestically. It’s more of a reminder for Sozin about what he might have done if not for the intervention of his friend, and there are still pirates around in the shipping lanes outside of the archipelago, especially along the coast of the Earth Kingdom. He lets his advisors go and steps from the temporary administration building to look out east over the Lower Capital.</p><p>Sozin can’t help but think about the past and how far he, and his nation have come. He desperately wishes his friend was still here to help guide him and to have lessened the impact of the natural disaster. However, Sozin knows that Roku was probably busy managing his own response to this tsunami. He looks in the direction of his friend’s island, somewhere in the pink glow that is still on the horizon, and wishes him luck in his endeavors to help the people around him. The closest reports have been only with about 150 miles, not even the distance from the Capital to South West Tip, let alone the roughly 400 miles between the Capital and Roku’s Island.</p><p>The moment of sentimentality passes and Sozin steps back into the makeshift administration building for more meetings about the state of the nation and updates on the extent of the tsunami disaster. He’s midway through the next meeting and staring down a particularly brash merchant when a member of his personal staff appears in his periphery. They hold a note out and he takes it without breaking his stare at the merchant, who is still talking about how the puddles volunteers have been leaving are ruining his business the same as if the water had washed it completely away.</p><p>Normally he would continue to stare this loud merchant down and slowly increase the intensity of the flames around his throne so as to make the annoying claimant sweat and realize their impropriety or simply trail off into silence and leave. However, the other claimants in this audience, equally annoyed by the merchant, have focused on the servant behind him. Their faces are mixtures of confusion and renewed sadness, and when he looks he can see a new devastated look on his messenger’s face.</p><p>“It’s a report from someone near Roku’s Island.” The messenger says quietly, only for the Fire Lord to hear, glancing at the note now in Sozin’s hands.</p><p>‘Early this morning there was a volcanic explosion from Roku’s Island that shook the entire island. Avatar Roku ensured that everyone from his village was evacuated safely. He’s gone back into the smoke, his wife says back to the volcano to try ensure further safety. Upon point of his leaving, there was deafening eruption bright enough to seem like midday summer and the Avatar has not been seen again among the rest of the village in the boats sailing from the island.’</p><p>Sozin reads the message slowly with a growing burning feeling, it’s not just that the flames around his throne have risen several feet to completely obscure him from the claimants in the room, its mainly the fact that his friend appears to be fighting the volcano on his island.</p><p>Fire Lord Sozin leaps from his throne with his messenger right behind him. They pay no mind to the claimants now being ushered away by the palace guard.</p><p>“Bring me my dragon,” Sozin commands the messenger following him, “Call for him to meet me here. I am flying to Roku’s island now.” His staff is rushing around him as Sozin makes his way to a space large enough for a dragon to land.</p><p>“No, I want you,” and Fire Lord points to the messenger, “to stay with me and tell me all that you know and have heard about Roku’s Island. You,” a different member of his staff getting the ceremonial robes off him so that they are not sullied by the trip, “call for Faw.”</p><p>“The note is from the leader of the town on the island, I got it straight from him when I met him at the Eastern Tip. The sail of his ship told his message for him, dyed black by the ash he sailed away from and the planks were so covered that it looked like there had been an inferno aboard with him. He must have been sailed straight from the island too, several hours, but even then he was still covered in ash and coughing as he composed his message. There’s another coming by messenger hawk, but he insisted I come at once. I rode my mongoose lizard ragged coming from the Tip, resting her on the trains that have built up. I hope you don’t mind your lordship, but I said it was important that you must know at once.”</p><p>“Yes, it was certainly prudent of you to come at all possible speed. Inform the palace so that you may further rest from your hard day of travel across the mainland, the messenger hawk’s message, a copy, yes?” Sozin asked, scanning the sky for his dragon.</p><p>“Yes”</p><p>“Then it will confirm the service you have done. And it will mark the necessity for which I must be going.” Sozin looked over the message still in his hand and then back at the sky. He had been divested of his ceremonial trappings necessary for appearing as the Fire Lord in meetings with his staff and the audiences with claimants after. Only a couple members of his staff and the messenger were still with him. “Anything else that you can tell me that was not in the note?” Sozin asked as they all searched the sky.</p><p>One of his staff pointed to the sky, near the direction of the sun and Faw came into view as the messenger responded. “He said something about the danger of the smoke and ash, but he collapsed into a coughing fit and waved me off.”</p><p>“Very well.” And Sozin knew that he didn’t have any time, the noble fool that Roku was meant that his friend was likely trying to bend away the worst of the destruction of the volcano. Faw was slowing for a landing but Sozin unleashed a burst of fire toward the ground that propelled him the twenty or thirty feet up towards the dragon.</p><p>“We must go swiftly to Roku’s Island old friend.” Sozin said to his dragon, guiding him eastward. “I hope you have eaten well before I hand because I must go as fast as you and the wind can carry me.” No sooner had Sozin said it when Faw sped off, climbing higher and flying fast enough to make the ground beneath them blur. They were heading towards the pink horizon, the omen clear now.</p><p>It still took several hours to fly there, and it was nearing dusk when they started to arrive. Or dusk was nearing them because the light on the horizon had coalesced into a deeper red light among a haze. The light was a beacon for dozens of miles, and the dark column of smoke and ash reaching miles above his dragon in flight, higher than the tallest mountain, was a beacon for a hundred miles at least. It was an awesome sight, to see a cloud of ash tall enough to brush against the ceiling of sky and fan out to the East across the top of the world, and there was no end. The light at the bottom was still bright even through the thick clouds of ash.</p><p>It was a terrible sight as he got closer because he could see the village in a fleet of fishing boats sitting to the West on Fountain Island, he could hear the rush of the wind racing towards the island, he could feel the heat as he flew above the coast a couple miles away from the mouth of the volcano. Riding on the back of a dragon was never cold, and living on the equator meant it was always a little warm, but as Fire Lord Sozin flew on his dragon Faw closer to the volcano on Roku’s Island the heat was nearly overwhelming.</p><p>The main source was of course the volcano and the lava boiling at the top, but the clouds of ash trapped it further still and closed any sight beyond a hundred feet, less as they got closer. The gales rushing in to the heat of this volcano could not dissipate the immense volumes of ash currently being produced. Despite the exhaustion of the journey Faw seemed to be reveling in a fire hot enough to challenge her own but Sozin had to go through several breathing exercises before he could find some resistance to the heat. He still had to be mindful of his exposure though, firebending practices would allow him to spend a good amount of time in this heat but for all his skill the Fire Lord knew that he could not withstand this heat forever.</p><p>How long Roku could stay here was beyond Sozin’s guessing, but probably not as long as he had already been here. It was likely that the Avatar had been battling with the volcano since the note said, this morning. Sozin’s suspicions of that truth were heightened as he and Faw spiraled up the volcano and saw Roku on the second circuit of the rim.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This version of the ATLA world is bigger than said in the show. It just didn't make sense to me that Roku's island is only 100 miles away from the capital of the Fire Nation because that's about a quarter of the way around the world. I've made it about a four times larger so that it makes more sense for me. It'll take longer to get places, but to me it feels better to have a world that big.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The dialogue in the first section of the first chapter is from the show.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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